Question

How can health information technology be used to improve health outcomes and overall life expectancy?

Answer 1

Ans) Improving patient safety outcomes and overall all life expectancy, when using health information technology which includes the following:

1. Health Information Governance:

- Organizations must establish a health information oversight mechanism that includes leadership and relevant stakeholders.

- In addition, organizations need to ensure that their health information plan is coordinated with the organization’s patient safety and risk management plan.

2. Safety Risk Identification:

- Organizations need to identify areas that health information technology might aid in improving patient safety namely, medication safety, guideline adherence, and so forth.

3. Stake-Holder Involvement:

- Stakeholders need to be involved in all phases of health information projects from planning and implementation until continuous improvement.

- The most important stakeholder must be the system end-user and process owner.

4. Informed Decision:

- Organizations need to review the cost effectiveness of suggested technologies, which includes conducting an evidence based decision and an evaluation of the current information technology infrastructure including software and hardware.

5. Sufficient Training:

- Organizations need to ensure that all relevant line staff receive sufficient training on the use of the proposed health information technology.

6. Gradual Implementation:

- Rolling out the technology in a gradual stepped approach is crucial to avoid disruption of current processes and systems.

7. Continuous evaluation and monitoring of patient safety outcomes:

- Organizations need to measure patient safety outcomes on a continuous basis especially during the initial implementation to ensure that the new technology achieves its intended outcome.

8. Technology optimization:

- Organizations need to modify and finetune the implemented technology based on user feedback and patient safety outcomes.

9. Regular technology updates:

- Organizations must ensure that health information technologies are continuously updated to comply with recent best clinical practices, regulatory standards, and technical stability.